This is the ninth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

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This is the fifth post in a series of articles about how broadcast technology vendors were ranked and benchmarked on a variety of metrics by the respondents to the 2013 BBS.

This article follows on from the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, by focusing on one of the most important metrics for any technology company – Quality.

2013 Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality Rankings

The broadcast prides itself on the fidelity of its sound and images, the perception of quality is a very important metric for broadcast technology vendors.

Many vendors use quality as one of the key components of their market positioning. Likewise, many end-users include technical performance and quality as a part of their procurement strategies.

The table below shows the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, which shows the top 30 ranked brands for “Quality” by 2013 BBS respondents.

An explanation of how these results were calculated can be found at the end of this article.

.Please note that both audio and video brands are included in these rankings, and that the table below shown brands in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study.

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This list contains a broad mix of vendors including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

Given the diversity of the vendors in this list, it’s worth asking whether factors such as organization size, breadth of product range, geography, or technology impact the perception of quality.

Since the ultimate manifestation of quality is in the actual product delivered to end-users, it’s useful to understand what products are produced by the vendors on this list, and whether this has an impact on the perception of quality.

The top three products in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table are audio products – Microphones, Audio Mixing Consoles, and Speakers.

This is an interesting data point. Although there are 30 product categories included in the 2013 BBS, only five are directly related to audio. Yet, the top three product categories in the 2013 BBS Quality rankings are audio products. Why are audio brands so prevalent in these rankings?

One possibility is that for many people, audio is all about the quality and fidelity of the sound. Thus quality is the ultimate metric for audio brands. Indeed, our research consistently shows that many pure-play audio companies have extremely high quality ratings.

Another thing to consider is that (as mentioned above in bold), the rankings posted on this website always contain both audio and video brands. Since there are fewer audio brands in the study, there may be a higher concentration of responses per brand on a relative basis when an audio professional responds to the survey.

Another issue is that the top 3 ranked product categories Microphones, Audio Mixing Consoles, and Speakers – are typically found in high-profile environments, and particularly in real-time or live environments where there are not always second chances to re-do a show, event, or recording.

Interestingly, the same can be said for many of the video-oriented products in the above chart.

Video products including cameras, production switchers, and video editing are typically found in live production or mission-critical studio applications. And the primary function of many test & measurement products, which are also produced by three of the brands in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, is to measure quality and fidelity.

Many of these products tend to be high ticket items that are produced by the industry’s larger vendors. This begs the question of whether organization size plays a role in the perception of quality. Larger companies often have a broader product offering, but does this translate into a higher perception of quality?

The table below examines the correlation between size of vendor / product range and the market’s perception of quality, by showing the number of product categories (as defined by the 2013 BBS segmentation) offered by each brand listed in this ranking.

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Sure enough, the vendors at the top of this chart are larger vendors that provide multiple product lines.

Having said that, the majority of the vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table are single product category companies (as defined by the 2013 BBS segmentation).

This shows that specialist vendors, whether large or small, who have expertise in a particular areas of technology are often able stand out from the rest of the market, including vendors who may be much larger.

The following six brands were listed in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, but are not listed in the 2013 rankings:

Clear-Com, Dolby, Isilon Systems/EMC, Mackie, Panasonic, Wheatstone

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How These Results Were Calculated

Based on how they answered a series of screening questions in the 2013 BBS were answered, relevant brands were algorithmically determined for each research participant. Each 2013 BBS participant was then asked to rank a variety of relevant broadcast technology vendor brands for “Quality” on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

Global response data from all BBS respondents was then aggregated and averaged in order to generate a global “Quality Score” for each brand based on these responses.

The brands with the top 30 scores for quality were then included in this ranking table. These brands were then sorted by alphabetical order to create the tables shown in this article.

The inclusion of any brand in the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size. The minimum sample size for inclusion in the tables shown herein is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand may have been excluded from any or all of the tables in this article due to insufficient sample size.

Both audio and video brands are included in the calculation of the rankings in this article, whereas these brands are typically separated in actual BBS reports. The inclusion of both audio and video brands may have a significant impact on the vendor brands included in these rankings.

All data these charts are presented in alphabeticalorder, NOT in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2013 BBS.

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The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

This is the eighth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

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This is the fourth post in a series of articles about how broadcast technology vendors were ranked and benchmarked on a variety of metrics by the respondents to the 2013 BBS.

This post looks at one of the most important metrics for any technology company – innovation.

An explanation of how these results were calculated can be found at the end of this article.

The product side of the film & broadcast industry is driven by technology and innovation. All vendors spend heavily on research and development in order to create advanced technologies that make their products stand out from the competition. Thus innovation is a very important component of the brand image and reputation of vendors in this space.

Please note that both audio and video brands are included in these rankings, and that the table below shown brands in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study.

There are a wide variety of companies on this list, including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

Let’s look specifically at the how these companies and their products were ranked in the 2013 BBS, beginning with products and technology.

As shown in the chart below, these companies make products in 22 of the 30 product categories that we covered in the 2013 BBS.

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The top offerings provided by brands in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table are production switchers, pro audio products, and test and measurement.

Does company size play a role in innovation? Larger companies offer more products and are consequently used in more places than their smaller counterparts. But this does not necessarily translate into innovation.

The chart below breaks down the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table by the number of product categories (as defined by the 2013 BBS segmentation) offered by each brand listed in this ranking.

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What’s interesting about these rankings is that it includes the largest brands in the industry such as Cisco, Sony and Panasonic, alongside smaller (and relatively new) companies such as Elemental Technologies and Phabrix.

It’s also interesting to note that just under one-third of the companies listed in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, are pure-play audio vendors.

There are also quite a few software companies including Adobe, Autodesk, Elemental, Telestream, and Vizrt.

Another thing to note is that this ranking is once again dominated by companies that provide products in a single product category – 19 out of 30 brands in this list (up from 18 in 2012). This suggests that focused companies who apply their efforts to specialist product areas are often able to generate more innovation in the eyes of the market.

At the same time, larger companies are also represented on this list of the broadcast industry’s top innovators. Sony and Snell provide products in the most categories in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, followed by Adobe, Blackmagic, and Panasonic.

Of course, companies are listed here based on how many 2013 BBS product categories they produce, which is not an absolute measure of the products offered be each vendor on this list. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2013 BBS category.

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Year-Over-Year Changes to BBS Innovation Rankings

The majority of vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table were also listed in this ranking last year.

The following new entrants to the BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table are listed in 2013 but were not listed last year:

Elemental Technologies, Leader, Telestream, Yamaha

The following brands were listed in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, but are not listed this year:

Angenieux, Mackie, Omneon, Salzbrenner Stagetec, T-VIPS

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How These Results Were Calculated

2013 BBS participants were asked to provide their perception of the innovation of a variety of relevant broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

This data was then aggregated and averaged in order to generate the global score for each brand based on these responses.

The top 30 global brands for innovation were then sorted by alphabetical order to create the tables shown in this article.

When reviewing this information, please note the following:

The inclusion of any brand in the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size. The minimum sample size for inclusion in the tables shown herein is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand may have been excluded from any or all of the tables in this article due to insufficient sample size.

Both audio and video brands are included herein, whereas these brands are typically separated in actual BBS reports.

All data these charts are presented in alphabeticalorder, NOT in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2013 BBS.

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The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

This is the seventh in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

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This is the third post in a series of articles about how broadcast technology vendors were ranked and benchmarked on a variety of metrics by the respondents to the 2013 BBS.

These rankings show how the global sample of 2013 BBS respondents rated a variety of broadcast technology vendor brands in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors, and also how their opinions have changed over time.

A large number of brands were listed in the two previous ranking lists. Between these two sets of league tables, a total of 70 broadcast technology vendor brands were listed (out of a total of 151 brands included in the 2013 BBS (the complete list of brands included in the 2013 BBS can be found here).

There were 46 vendors in the in the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table (versus 48 in 2012), and 53 vendors in the 2013 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table (versus 58 in 2012).

However, the brands in the Overall Opinion and Net Change of Opinion rankings were not always the same. In fact, out of the 70 broadcast technology vendor brands that were listed in the previous two rankings, just 29 brands were listed in both sets of rankings, either globally or regionally.

We’ve called this list of the 29 brands listed in both the 2013 BBS Overall Opinion and Net Change of Opinion rankings the 2013 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table.

These vendors, shown below, are held in high regard today by broadcast technology buyers, and are also perceived to be getting better over time.

Please note that both audio and video brands are included in these rankings, and that the table below shown brands in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study.

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There are a wide variety of companies on this list, including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

What they have in common is strong brand recognition, and a dynamism that 2013 BBS respondents feel is making them even stronger.

Year-over-year changes to these rankings:

Twenty-two in the 2013 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table were listed in the 2012 version of these rankings:

The following eight companies that were listed in the 2012 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table are not included in the 2013 ranking:

Apple, Clear-Com, Genelec, Harmonic, Harris, Omneon, Schoeps, Wohler

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Brand Opinion Leaders by Product Categories

As shown in the chart below, the companies in the 2013 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table make products in 23 of the 30 categories that we covered in the 2013 BBS, down from 25 product categories in 2012.

The chart above has a good mix of audio and video products, as well as a mix of hardware and software products.

However, it is interesting to note that many of the most frequently cited product categories are audio-related. Some vendors on this list, such as Adobe, Avid, Riedel, and Sony, are listed in both audio and video product categories in the 2013 BBS. Other vendors are listed in only audio categories. These include Adam, Dolby, Lawo, Neumann, RTW, Sennheiser, Shure, Solid State Logic, Soundcraft, Studer, Wheatstone, and Yamaha.

It is also useful to look at the number of product categories provided by each vendor in the Global Brand Opinion Leader League Table. After all, larger companies often make more products and are consequently used in more places than their smaller counterparts.

The table below shows the number of product categories that each brand in this ranking produces (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2013 BBS).

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While there are several brands on this list that appear in many product categories, the vast majority produce only one or two types of products. Indeed out of the thirty brands in this table, sixteen brands appear only once.

Keep in mind that companies who produce only one type of product are not necessarily small. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 201 BBS category.

It turns out that to fully understand what drives brand opinion and brand leadership, one needs to look at the factors that drive and influence these perceptions. This includes the company’s reputation for things like innovation, reliability, quality, value and great customer service.

This is the sixth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

This post looks at how the global sample of broadcast professionals who participated in the 2013 BBS ranked their Net Change of Overall Opinion of the 151 broadcast technology vendors we covered in the study.

Net Change of Overall Opinion

While it’s good news for any vendor to achieve a good “overall opinion” ranking, this metric is somewhat one-sided because it relies solely on the positive opinions of respondents.

In order to get a better understanding of how broadcast technology vendor brands are perceived, it is necessary to look at both the positive and negative opinions of brands. It is also necessary to take into account how these opinions have changed over time.

Once this information has been collected, we use it to create the Net Change of Overall Opinion Ranking, a metric that demonstrates which brands are perceived as getting better, and which are in decline, on an overall basis. Net Change in Overall Opinion provides a more balanced view each brand because it takes into account both the positive and negative perceptions of brands, along with how these opinions have changed over time.

An explanation of how these results were calculated can be found at the end of this article.

The Net Change in Overall Opinion findings from the 2013 BBS are shown below in two ways:

An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “Net Change of Overall Opinion.” The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally.

An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance of each vendor in the Net Change of Overall Opinion league table

The top 30 ranked brands for Net Change of Overall Opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

When reading these results, please keep the following in mind.

Both audio and video brands are included in these rankings, and all response data shown herein is from the global sample of from all 2013 BBS participants, regardless of organization type, size, geographic location, or size of budget; and that actual results in the BBS Brand report may be different.

Please note that inclusion of any brand in any cut of the data shown the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size. The minimum sample size for inclusion in these charts is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand was excluded from these findings based on sample size.

In all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the study.

The 2013 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table:

A total of 53 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table (versus 59 in 2012 and 51 in 2011), illustrating the geographic variation of opinion. Analysis of these results shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

It’s useful to understand how often each brand appears in the 2013 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table.

This is shown below, along with the equivalent data from both 2012 and 2011 for comparison.

Frequency of appearance of brands in the 2013 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table:

10 brands appear four times (compared to 9 brands in 2012 and 13 brands in 2011), meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

13 brands appear three times (compared to 13 brands in 2012 and 10 brands in 2011)

11 brands appear two times (compared to 11 brands in 2012 and 9 brands in 2011)

19 brands appear one time (compared to 26 brands in 2102 and 19 brands in 2011). This illustrates a fragmentation of opinion about many brands based on geography

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Brands appearing four times in the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table:

Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table:

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly ranked in each geographic region, the data has been provided in the table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion.

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This frequency analysis chart shows that there are some interesting geographic variations in the data. Here’s a closer look at how brands appeared by geography:

Appearing only in the global ranking of the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table

Four brands achieved a top 30 ranking in the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion league table, despite not being listed in the top 30 of any of the three geographic regions. This may be a function of sample size. As discussed above, there is a minimum sample size requirement for inclusion in each cut of the data presented in these chart, and the global ranking, by definition, has the largest overall sample.

Ensemble, On-Air Systems, Ooyala, Xen Data

Appearing only in one region of the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table

The following brands appear in one regional category of the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table, but do not appear in the global ranking:

Appearing only in the Americas region in the 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table

Telecast, T-VIPS, Wheatstone

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How These Results Were Calculated

No company is perfect, and the brands we measured in the 2013 BBS are no different. All brands in the 2013 BBS had both positive (got better) and negative (got worse) connotations associated with them. There were also are significant percentage of respondents who said their opinion of a brand had “stayed the same.”

2013 BBS participants were asked to rank their opinion of broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

We then asked respondents whether their opinion of these brands has changed over the last few years – specifically whether they feel their opinion of each brand has “improved,” “declined” or “stayed the same.”

The Net Change in Overall Opinion for each brand was then calculated by subtracting the percentage of respondents who said a brand “got worse” from the percentage of respondents who said their opinion of a brand had “got better,” while ignoring the “stayed the same” responses.

This “change of opinion data” provides a more comprehensive view of how each brand is perceived by the market because it takes into account positive and negative perceptions.

Please note that inclusion of any brand in the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size. The minimum sample size for inclusion in the tables shown herein is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand may have been excluded from any or all of the tables in this article due to insufficient sample size.

Also, please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabeticalorder, NOT in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2013 BBS.

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The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

This is the fifth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

This is the first in a series of posts about how broadcast technology vendors were ranked and benchmarked on a variety of metrics by the respondents to the 2013 BBS.

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask a global sample of broadcast professionals to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.

We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” provides a view as to how each vendor is positioned in the market relative to the industry as a whole, as well as against their direct competitors.

This post looks at how the global sample of broadcast professionals who participated in the 2013 BBS ranked their overall opinion of the 151 broadcast technology vendors we covered in the study.

An explanation of how these results were calculated can be found at the end of this article. The complete list of vendor brands covered in the 2013 BBS is here.

Research findings are displayed in two ways in this article:

An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “overall opinion.” The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally

An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance in the “overall opinion league table”

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

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Please note that in all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by 2103 BBS participants.

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A total of 46 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, (versus 48 in 2012 and 43 in 2011), illustrating the geographic variation of opinion, which will be discussed later.

In terms of frequency of appearance in the above ranking:

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17 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each of the three geographic regions. For comparison, in the 2012 BBS (when we covered 152 brands) there were 15 brands that appeared in the top 30 globally and in each of the 3 regions.

9 brands appear three times, versus 10 brands that appeared three times last year.

5 brands appear two times, versus 7 brands that appeared two times last year.

15 brands appear one time, which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area. In the 2012 BBS, 16 brands appeared one time.

Analysis of the data shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

A breakdown of how many times each company appears in the ranking shows how many times each brand appears in the chart above.

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Brands appearing four times in the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

The following brands are listed four times in the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, meaning that research participants ranked them in the top 30 for overall opinion globally, as well as in each of the three geographic regions:

Although many of these brands also appeared four times in the BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table last year, there are also several changes to the composition of this list.

The following brands that appear in all four categories (global, EMEA, APAC, Americas) in the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table were listed fewer than four times in the 2012 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table. The numbers shown in parentheses show the number of times each brand was listed in the BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table last year, and the year-over year change:

Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

The table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion, provides a better understanding of where each brand was highly ranked for overall opinion.

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The frequency chart shows some interesting geographic variations in the data, which is detailed below.

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking globally + one region

Three brands achieved a top 30 ranking globally, despite being in the top 30 of only one out of the three geographic regions.

Apple, Autodesk, beyerdynamic

Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking in one region

The following 15 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in EMEA

Barco, Lawo, Riedel, RTW

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in Asia-Pacific

Audio-Technica, Evertz, HP, Leader, NEC

Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in the Americas

Adam, Grass Valley, Ikegami, RTS Intercom Systems, Wheatstone, Wohler

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How These Results Were Calculated

2013 BBS participants were asked to rank their opinion of broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

This data was then aggregated and averaged in order to generate the global score for each brand based on these responses. In order to create the regional scores, this data was broken out geographically based on the location of the respondent.

The top 30 brands for each of the four ranking lists (global, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, Americas) was sorted by alphabetical order to create the tables shown in this article.

Please note that inclusion of any brand in the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size. The minimum sample size for inclusion in the tables shown herein is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand may have been excluded from any or all of the tables in this article due to insufficient sample size.

Also, please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabeticalorder, NOT in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2013 BBS.

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The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners

Although the article focuses on how SDN might impact major IT networking vendors, Ray could have just as easily been writing about broadcast technology.

Take for example, the first two paragraphs:

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“A decade ago, I asked a venture capitalist in computer networking if dedicated network gear would ever be replaced by software running on a standard computer. My hypothesis was that as general-purpose computers became more powerful, they could absorb functions that previously required specialized computer hardware, the way many functions can be performed on PCs today that once required mainframes. The venture capitalist assured me it would never happen, for a variety of reasons, even if it became technologically possible.

“Fast forward 10 years, and the computer networking world is abuzz with talk of “software-defined networking”— software that can perform the same functions as dedicated hardware, but instead runs on an Intel-based server.”

Ten years ago much of the broadcast industry was dominated by bespoke hardware, and it would have been hard for many to imagine that these products could be replaced by software running on generic IT hardware.

But this is exactly what happened as the broadcast industry transitioned to file-based workflows. Video servers replaced tape machines, graphics & branding became increasingly software-based, software-based transcoding became ubiquitous, and traditional master control functionality slowly began to be replaced by integrated playout (channel-in-a-box) systems.

Although the broadcast market has undoubtedly seen tremendous change during this time, it’s likely that we are still in the early innings of the true “ITification” of the industry. So what’s next?

To get an idea of what the future might hold for broadcast, one only has to look at the of the (significantly larger) IT industry, where investor Marc Andreessen famously wrote that “software is eating the world.”

The IT industry has gone through massive changes – with SDN being one of the latest – driven by new technology; the availability of on-demand cloud-based computing power; low power, high performance semiconductors; falling memory prices; end-user mobility; and customer demand for greater efficiency, automated operations, and better analytics.

Sound familiar?

The same “external forces” that have changed the IT industry are also impacting the broadcast and media technology business. If/when these changes take hold in the broadcast industry, there will be significant ramifications for both end-users (broadcasters and media companies) and technology vendors.

The TV business has changed dramatically over the past ten years, particularly on the distribution side. While it’s easy to focus on consumer-oriented statistic such as the amount of video being consumed on phones and tablets, and the consumer’s desire to have an anytime, anywhere media experience; these trends often don’t directly impact most broadcast technology vendors. They do however impact the customers of technology vendors (broadcasters and media companies), who are making plans today that will let them take advantage of new technologies, and as a result radically change the landscape of the industry.

It remains to be seen how radical these changes will be. However, another look at the IT industry again provides a glimpse of what might be in store.

Writing in Barron’s, Ray describes some of the implications for traditional IT switching hardware:

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“A more prosaic battle is playing out, as Cisco and others are already cannibalizing the network switches they have long sold, providing what are called “virtual” switches that are just software programs that run on a server.

“A network switch or router is a specialized computer with specially developed chips that perform calculations to determine how to direct bits of data between computers. As complex as they are, some of those calculations can now be efficiently performed in software running on Intel processors.

“The virtual switch movement is already having an impact on network equipment, shaking up the rankings of who’s top dog in individual categories of switching.”

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According to Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa, who follows the IT industry, this means “an entire class of switching equipment may go away.”

Could this also happen in broadcast? Time will tell, but a number of vendors are already working on solutions to make this a reality.

Ray goes on to highlight another major force that has impacted the IT networking industry, Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS), which delivers virtually unlimited computing powers that can be “elastically provisioned” on an as-needed basis.

According to Gartner’s Skorupa, AWS has major implications for makers of hardware-based networking gear.

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“Amazon Web Services can become a buyer of tremendous power, and one thing it may do is buy a lot more networking software than hardware, they opine.

“The immediate result, says Skorupa, is that switch software should cost less than hardware boxes, which means lower revenue for networking vendors.”

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Could the same thing happen in the broadcast technology space?

If so what are the implications for both end-users and technology vendors?

Major broadcaster and media companies realize they can gain tremendous efficiency advantages by leveraging advances in the IT industry. Therefore many of these organizations are taking a hard look at how to integrate some of these new IT technologies into their operations.

Some have gone as far as saying their ultimate goal is a “virtualized broadcast infrastructure with in-line processing.” In other words, they foresee a future where the broadcast infrastructure is housed in an IT data center, and the operations done today primarily by hardware boxes are carried out by software that plugs in to the IT core. And by the way, broadcasters probably won’t be building this facility. Instead, they’ll rent computing power on an as-needed basis from AWS or some other cloud-based service provider.

So perhaps it’s inevitable that, like the rest of the world, the broadcast industry will also be “eaten by software.” When this happens, it will be important that software applications are both fit for purpose, and interoperable. Fortunately, work is being done today that will hopefully ensure interoperability between next generation broadcast systems and applications.

The VSF Task Force — which is being led by Richard Friedel, EVP & GM, Fox NE&O and VSF President, VSF executive director Brad Gilmer, Hans Hoffman of the EBU, and Peter Symes of SMPTE — is not a standards setting body. Its vision is to enable new business opportunities through the exchange of professional media across networks, taking advantage of the benefits of IT-based technology at an affordable price. The Task Force, working in an open participatory environment, will map out a strategy for developing a packet-based network infrastructure for the professional media industry by bringing together manufacturers, broadcasters and industry organizations (standards bodies and trade associations) with the objective to create, store, transfer and stream professional media. Anyone who wants to join this important initiative should contact Bob Ruhl at the VSF.

The VSF Task Force is moving quickly in order to ensure that a common framework, focused on interoperability, is established before hundreds new products, which might otherwise be incompatible, are introduced in the coming months and years by both established vendors and newcomers.

These firms believe they have significant opportunities to leverage advanced IT technologies, including SDN, into their broadcast-oriented product lines. As a result, it’s likely we’ll see an entirely new category of products and services being introduced over the next few years.

Details of SDVI (which is a member of the VSF Task Force) are opaque at this point, but Kaplan (who occasionally blogs about SDVI here), told TV Technology magazine that his new company will “take advantage of advances in IT technology and cloud-based services within the broadcast infrastructure to improve workflow and operational efficiencies,” and launch its first products at IBC 2013.

Although Kaplan new firm and others are already moving quickly to bring SDN technology to the broadcast industry, there is still confusion about the technology and what it means for both vendors and end-users.

Indeed there is even confusion in the IT networking world according to Juniper Networks, whose website says “SDN is the talk of the networking world. But as popular as it’s been lately, it’s still shrouded in misconception.”

This is the fourth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

This article expands on the findings of the 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index by drilling down into the specific product categories that are being evaluated for purchase this year by our global sample of nearly 10,000 broadcast technology end-users in 100+ countries.

We presented research participant with a list of relevant product categories and asked to indicate which ones they are currently evaluating for purchase.

The results are shown in the chart below.

In 2013 it is likely that production technology – such as video editing systems, camera-related products, and audio technology – will be in demand as broadcast professionals continue to upgrade their facilities to HDTV operations.

The new studios, OB vans, and channels that broadcasters have planned and budgeted for will drive the evaluation and purchase of a wide variety of equipment including studio cameras, production switchers, multiviewers, automation, storage, and transmission encoders. As always, test & measurement products will be required for these new facilities.

Strong interest in multi-platform content delivery is driving interest in products and services such as ingest/ streaming/ transcoding and online video delivery platforms.

The ongoing transition to file-based/tapeless workflows will drive the evaluation and purchase of products such as near-line/off-line/archival storage, production servers, and playout automation.

All of the above will likely benefit software-oriented systems such as workflow / asset management, library/storage management, and broadcast business management systems. These products help broadcast technology increase their operational efficiency by facilitating content storage & search; linear and multi-platform playout & distribution; and of course monetization.

The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners